Embedded multimedia terminal adapters (EMTAs) are data over cable service interface specification (DOCSIS) based cable modems with multimedia terminal adapters (MTAs) embedded in them. Service providers utilizes EMTAs to provide, for example, telephone service and Internet access to subscribers. In more detail, EMTAs are customer premise equipment that connect to a hybrid fiber-coax (HFC) network and convert voice over IP (VoIP) packets into analog audio streams to allow standard phones to be used by a subscriber. Particularly, the EMTA's MTA portion is used to provide this VoIP telephone service to the subscriber. In addition to VoIP service, EMTAs also allow the subscriber to access the Internet.
The conventional reset strategy is to reset (i.e. reboot) the entire EMTA whenever just the MTA portion needs to be reset. A common reason for resetting the MTA is to apply an updated configuration to the MTA. Resetting the entire EMTA when just the MTA needs resetting often causes problems because this conventional strategy causes, in addition to lost VoIP service, a loss in Internet service and uses more reset time than necessary to just reset the MTA. In some situations, due to the amount of downtime created for both VoIP telephone service and Internet service, resetting the entire EMTA is not desirable. Consequently, it may be desirable to reset only the EMTA's MTA portion while keeping other portions of the EMTA in service. In addition to keeping Internet access available by resetting only the MTA portion, the length of phone service outage experienced by the customer is reduced by only resetting the EMTA's MTA portion; This is because it takes less time to reset just the MTA as compared to setting the entire EMTA.